Page 76 - Bonhams NYC Indian and Himalayan Art March 2019

873
A TERRACOTTA BUST OF BUDDHA
CENTRAL THAILAND, DVARAVATI PERIOD, 7TH/8TH CENTURY
11 1/4 in. (28.5 cm) high
$20,000 - 30,000
泰國中部 陀羅缽地王朝 七/八世紀 陶質佛陀半身像

This early Buddhist sculpture from Central Thailand once belonged to Jim Thompson,
whose Bangkok home is one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations. Whereas
the land on which it was built was once an airy suburb, today Thompson’s home stands as
a quiet oasis in Central Bangkok, and constitutes one of the most elegant museums of Thai
art. Thompson was an American entrepreneur who, before his mysterious disappearance in
the jungles of northern Malaysia in 1967, transformed a fading Thai silk industry into one of
Asia’s best known products. According to the eminent Thai dealer Peng Seng, Thompson
was a collector of Thai antiques by the 1940s, most of which he purchased from local
dealers, whose exclusive clientele at the time consisted of few others than Thai royalty and
the occasional foreigner (Warren et al., The House on the Klong, Bangkok, 1999). In the
1960s Thompson gifted and sold a number of artworks in his collection to friends, as in the
case of this rare sculpture.

With broad facial features characteristic of the Mon Dvaravati aesthetic, this sculpture
portrays Buddha’s countenance with a quiet nobility. It was produced from a mold similar
or identical to a series of terracotta sculptures of Seated Buddha found among the ruins of
a monastery in U Thong. The U Thong National Museum in Saphunburi retains a complete
figure as well as a head (Baptiste & Zephir, Dvaravati, Paris, 2009, pp.184-5, nos.81-2),
while the National Museum, Bangkok, holds an entire figure, fragmented at the neck (Pal et
al., Light of Asia, Los Angeles, 1984, p.216, no.100). Another head is published in Gosling,
Origins of Thai Art, Bangkok, 2004, p.68.

Published
6 Soi Kasemsan II: An Illustrated Survey of the Bangkok Home of James H. W. Thompson,
2nd edition, Bangkok, 1962.

Provenance
Collection of James H. W. Thompson
Private Collection, UK, acquired from the above in 1962/63

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